Troubles at Fukushima. From BAD to WORSE

I think the Japanese government is considering just dumping all the stored contaminated water into the ocean.

One can make an argument for that and for the notion that it would not be a catastrophic increase in radioactive elements in the ocean, by volume, but
it sets up or continues a pattern of thinking in Japan and the rest of the world which really amounts to the death of a thousand cuts.

I think an International Geophysical Year focused on radioactivity and cleaning up Fukushima would jolt us out of a dangerous mindset that is
taking hold in the world, of permitting a long chain of minor concessions to catastrophe which will eventually add up to complete
catastrophe.

There are so many numb and unaware people in this world currently, that coupled with the few that seem to be steering the media and government ship
currently is a recipe for eminent disaster. The media alone could bring awareness and change all of this.

The disaster is like someone crapping in the punch bowl at a large party, everyone sees the turd but yet they pretend it's not there, and still
continue to drink the punch.

Here is a hypothetical International Geophysical Year scenario as it relates to stored contaminated water:

In labs around the world scientists are experimenting with using magnetic fields to filter radioactive elements out of water. There are industrial
situations where this necessity arises.

Suppose the immense scientific and financial resources of several countries were to gather the leading experts in this field and send them to
Fukushima to set up an industrial sized magnetic water filtration system to handle stored contaminated water at that site. It is very likely that the
amount of contaminated water being dumped into the Pacific could be reduced greatly or that the concentration of radioactive elements in the water
could be reduced greatly, before it is dumped.

This situation is not even a long shot. It is a virtual certainty. It would be tremendously helpful if it happened.

It is orders of magnitude easier to handle the water on site now, instead of having to handle a much more dispersed problem after the water has been
dumped into the Pacific.

A lot could be done with this approach, the International Geophysical Year, and there might even be some entirely new game changing breakthrough that
solves the spent fuel problem entirely.

David McNeill, reports for The Economist and The Independent. Co-author of “Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami, and
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster.”

Yoichi Funabashi, chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation. Program director of the “Independent Investigation Commission on the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident.” A former editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, the second-largest newspaper in Japan.

Per Peterson, chair of the department of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley.

Ken Buesseler, senior scientist in marine chemistry and geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. He has been studying radioactive
contamination in the Pacific Ocean and its fish stocks.

UC Berkeley Nuclear Professor: Work to go on for thousands of years at Fukushima site? Could be impossible to remove melted fuel — Containment
vessels may not survive (AUDIO)

Per Peterson, chair of the department of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley:The primary containment vessel, it’s being left submerged in
salty water and is corroding. So by not making prudent decisions today about what water must be discharged and what water can be safely discharged and
instead just storing it all, the risk is it will make it in the longer term much less likely that it will be possible to get the damaged fuel out. And
so by misdirecting a lot of the effort to do things that don’t reduce risk significantly, they’re creating in Japan a much larger probability that
in the end it will not be possible to get the damaged fuel out, and they will have to manage those plants at that site for millennia going into the
future.

Tom Ashbrook, Host: Millennia, that means thousands of years. […]

Peterson: Continue to flush water through these reactors to keep them cool and also you want to be trying to flush out all of that salt that was
injected into these reactors, which right now is contributing to the corrosion of these primary containment vessels that if they don’t survive it
will become challenging or impossible to get the damaged fuel out.

I listened to the statement made by Per Peterson, chair of the department of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, in the radio program linked above and
was surprised at his comments.

He says that most of the water being stored in holding tanks at Fukushima has already been purified of radiation to internationally accepted
standards, but instead of dumping the water to make the holding tanks available for more water, Tepco is, inexplicably continuing to store the
water (!) and growing their tank farm instead of moving on to pump the reactor containment vessel clear of salt water to halt corrosion and so
that the fuel rods in the reactor can be removed.

It is possible that Tepco, a company with a reputation for lying, is lying about how pure that water is.

Usually when something completely irrational is being done, there is a rational, though sometimes concealed, reason for doing it.

The China syndrome (loss-of-coolant accident) is a fictional nuclear reactor operations accident characterized by the severe meltdown of the core
components of the reactor, which then burn through the containment vessel and the housing building, then notionally through the crust and body of the
Earth until reaching the other side, which in the United States is jokingly referred to as being China.[18][19]

In reality under a complete loss of coolant scenario the fast erosion phase of the concrete basement lasts for about an hour and progresses into about
one meter depth, then slows to several centimeters per hour, and stops completely when the corium melt cools below the decomposition temperature of
concrete (about 1100 °C). Complete melt-through can occur in several days even through several meters of concrete; the corium then penetrates
several meters into the underlying soil, spreads around, cools and solidifies. [31]

Note the annotation number, [31].

Scrolling down to check the annotation we find:

^ Cite error: The named reference google1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

It is important to keep in mind that there have not been many nuclear reactor meltdowns. Japan and Tepco lead the world with three serious
meltdowns.

Bottom line, I don't have any confidence that anyone really knows what is going on in and under those reactor vessels at Fukushima.

Below the bottom line:

According to the theory:

However in case of Fukushima incident this design also at least partially failed: large amounts of highly radioactive water were produced and
nuclear fuel has possibly melted through the base of the pressure vessels.[14]

Cooling will take quite a while, until the natural decay heat of the corium reduces to the point where natural convection and conduction of heat to
the containment walls and re-radiation of heat from the containment allows for water spray systems to be shut down and the reactor put into safe
storage. The containment can be sealed with release of extremely limited offsite radioactivity and release of pressure within the containment.
After a number of years for fission products to decay - probably around a decade - the containment can be reopened for decontamination and
demolition.

If there is fuel beneath the outer containment structure in the soil below the plant, the ground water runoff to the ocean would be a very high
priority problem.

Forgive the following personal observations. I did have friends among engineers that I respected.

Annotation: A Word About Engineers.

First off, the modern world couldn't live without them. They are invaluable to our civilization. They have always been on the cutting edge of progress
and on the cutting edge of catastrophe. They are important. But . . . they shouldn't be in charge of anything.

Why?

Most people don't have much experience of engineers. When I was in university, I lived in a residence that was full of them. I was in Arts (English).
I have observed the psychology of engineers.

Engineers are the jocks of science. Think of an NFL footbal team. Yes, there are smart guys who play football and guys with their heads screwed
on straight, but for every one of them there are 10 guys who are just irresponsible goofballs who want to have a good time.

That's engineers.

When they have to, they can straighten up and look serious and be presentable, but in the back of their minds, what they really want to do is collect
a big paycheck, buy a hot car, bang a lot of hot babes, and drink a lot of beer.

They avoid electives at school and grumble all the way to their philosophy class. They "don't need that stuff."

They just want to plug in their formulas, solve their equations and party.

Originally posted by Orygun
What most don't understand, is that Fukishima has now become Japan's answer to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they are attacking the US via the
radiation released from this site. Yes, they soon will own the Pacific as evidenced by all the double layered metal ships they are building, almost
as if they knew in advance that this would happen. They probably had something to do with setting off the earthquakes and tsunami's that caused all
this. Makes sense yes? Besides, if a fish has 3 eyes, it means we have one more juicy eye for our fish soup, and you thought this was all bad.

Double layered ships prevent a ship from leaking fuel or cargo if there is a collision with another vessel or iceberg.

There have been campaigns to get every oil tanker double if not triple layered to prevent this ecological damage. Though these days they have weather
satellites and GPS to prevent these things from happening.

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